


One Last Farewell

by JuweWright



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1970s, F/M, Gen, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Other, Post-Hogwarts, Time Travel, Time Turner (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 18:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18255152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: An accident with a time-turner-device sends Ministry worker Hermione back 20 years in time where she meets the members of the first Order of the Phoenix.





	One Last Farewell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [petals_sunwards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/petals_sunwards/gifts).



> This was written for the 2019 Bunny Bounce exchange of Hermione's Haven.
> 
> Prompt:  
> Pairing Options: Hermione/Remus or Hermione/Sirius, minor Jily  
> Asking For: Fluff, Humor  
> Scenario: There is unresolved Sexual Tension and there is rivalry. You never know what is it until you get candidates locked in a room. The question is how do you get them there and what happens next.  
> Kinks: Magical theory discussion, prank competition  
> Squicks: Smut! Please nothing explicit  
> Additional Notes: no Severus bullying. i.e. no pranks on Snape
> 
> Lots of love to my beta nantai!

Hermione had been working on the time-turner for hours now, trying to find out how it worked and how it had been constructed. There was some pretty advanced magic at work here and she was surprised that Draco Malfoy had surrendered this device to her and not tried to make it disappear on the way from where he and a few other Aurors had emptied an old Pure-Blood witches cellar after she had been convicted of murdering her gardener. Draco sometimes couldn’t help himself. He was a collector. Unusual magical items fascinated him. There were treasures in his cellar that nobody except Hermione had any notion of. And she only knew about them, because from time to time, she had to come over and make sure they didn’t blow up Malfoy Manor. Or because one of the cups from an old grave in Iran contained a particularly uncouth Dschinn.

Carefully she took one of the small screwdrivers and pressed down a latch while simultaneously lifting up a tiny spring. 

Just in that very moment, an owl swooped into her office through the chimney and shoo-hooed, happy to have found a way in after finding all the windows closed. Hermione’s hand wavered for a second, the screwdriver slipping and the next moment…

she was sitting at the exact same desk in the exact same room in the Ministry but with the distinct difference that the device was gone and there was paperwork on her desk covered in a different handwriting than her own. 

“Huh,” said somebody from where he was standing in front of a shelf, sorting through a pile of papers. As he turned around she recognized Kingsley Shacklebolt. But this Kingsley was much younger and much leaner than the man she knew.

He had his wand out before she could even open her mouth.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?” he demanded.

Hermione raised both hands above her head and stood up slowly, showing him that she had no intention to do any harm but that she also wasn’t frightened. Within a few seconds she had analyzed the situation and come to the conclusion that honesty probably was her best bet.

“I’m sorry Mister Shacklebolt. My name is Hermione Granger. I am a future Ministry employee and I just had an accident with what I assume might have been a very cleverly constructed real time turner. Could you please tell me which year I have landed in?”

He was suspicious but told her the year. It was 1979! Merlin’s striped underpants! She had jumped back twenty years! 

Kingsley summoned none other than Albus Dumbledore to help him with this strange visitor - the headmaster having had an appointment in the Ministry that very day - and Albus appeared just a few minutes later. Thankfully, she could supply both of them with ample information to make them believe her story. Dumbledore quickly disapparated to confirm the fact that there was indeed a Muggle baby called Hermione Jean Granger who had been born not much earlier this year. After she explained about the device again, he nodded gravely.

“We will have to hope that it has a return-function that is automatically triggered after a few hours,” he said. “You, Miss Granger, will appear as Holly Fraser, a new recruit to the Order of the Phoenix from Yorkshire. I guess as you are aware of the delicate matter of time, I don’t have to give you any instructions as to your silence about any future events?”

He didn’t. She knew how fragile time could be and how even minor disturbances could lead to catastrophic outcomes. As she followed Kingsley to “The Headquarters” she therefore suppressed her surprise when she found out they had apparated to Grimmauld Place number twelve. She knew how to handle this. She just hoped that the damn crazy murderous witch had known what she was doing when she built the Time Turner.

 

~*~*~

 

The Marauders left the “Hog’s Head” after an evening of banter, pub food and way too much alcohol. The original idea had been to get a message to Aberforth and it had turned into a Reunion celebration. James and Lily took the floo to Godric’s Hollow where they had lately bought a house whilst Remus and Sirius set out to go back to Grimmauld Place on their brooms. Peter wasn’t going anywhere tonight, as he had fallen asleep after his fifth butterbeer and was still snoring on the wooden table, drooling from the corner of his mouth.

“All right, mate, I’ll just…” Sirius said, swinging his leg across his broom with too much vigour and falling over to the other side. “Dang. These are new trousers.”

“Now they’re new and covered in mud,” Remus giggled. “You look like you shat your pants, mate.”

“Wow, there, you’re no soberer than I am.”

“Exactly two firewhiskeys difference, Sirius. It can mean the world,” Remus said and sat down on his broom with more care than necessary to avoid sharing his friend’s fate. “Are you sure you’re even fit to fly, or will you fall off half-way to the city and I’ll have to scrape your remains off the floor to prove to Dumbledore that no, Sirius Black was not attacked by Death Eaters, he managed very well to kill himself.”

“I am still a better flyer than you'll ever be, Moony.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m better at charms and transfiguration than you, though.”

“Bah. Don’t start with your NEWT marks, or I’ll have another encounter with the firewhiskey.”   


It took them longer to get back to Islington than it had taken them to get to the meeting with their friends. They had to stop twice, because Sirius felt faint. But the good thing was that after three hours of flying, they were almost sober again when they crossed the threshold of number 12 Grimmauld Place.

They had been bickering about magical talent and skills for a while now and Sirius was in a mood, because he could already feel the hangover lurking behind his forehead and it vexed him that Remus had once again remained more in control of himself than him. 

“All right. Let’s see who’s the better magician, shall we?” he announced as they walked up the stairs to the first floor. 

Remus didn’t have time to consider whether or not he was up for the challenge before his friend pushed him into one of the spare bedrooms and locked the door with a series of enchantments half of which Remus had never even heard of before.

“If you manage to get out through this door, I will officially announce in front of the entire Order that you are better than me,” Sirius’ muffled voice came through the door. 

Remus was about to protest but he could hear the other man’s footsteps retreat down the hallway. He sighed and massaged his temples. It had been a good evening with the other Marauders, but he felt tired and exhausted and still a little drunk and there was a bed which looked inviting. He’d think about the lock tomorrow. After all, Sirius had not set a certain deadline to his challenge. 

Remus walked over to the bed, pulled off his sweater and trousers on the way and just collapsed onto the mattress. A small part of his brain recognized a faint whiff of cinnamon that emanated from the pillow and also a source of warmth that felt quite good after the long ride through the cold night, but he was way too tired to care what it was. 

 

*~*~*

 

Hermione woke up because a ray of sunlight had found its way through the curtains and was falling on her face. She had slept so well that it took her a few seconds to remember where  and when she was. Damn that bloody device! Another second made her realize that she was holding on to something warm and breathing. Something big! She opened her eyes and suppressed a scream when she realized she had been hugging somebody in her sleep. Somebody who had not been in her bed last night when Kingsley had assigned her this room as her temporary abode!

She pushed against the man’s shoulder - because the short hair and muscle structure under his grey worn-out shirt suggested her roommate was male - and the culprit woke up with a groan. As he turned around and opened his eyes, she had to bite her lips to suppress another scream. She knew this man, had known him for a while and grown fond of him. Fond enough that she still bemoaned his death every time she was in need of a mentor. But the Remus Lupin she had known had had grey strands in his hair. He had been a grown man, twenty years older than her. Her thoughts raced. Twenty years! She had landed in bloody 1979. Of course he had to look younger. Because they were the same age now. 

He didn’t look any less dishevelled than she knew him though. His hair was a mess and his shirt was crumpled. He looked horror-stricken as he realized he had shared a bed with an unknown female. Apologising profusely he jumped out of bed in a comical motion, almost tripped over his own trousers that lay on the floor, realized he was only wearing a pair of grey underpants and blushed an unhealthy looking shade of red.

“Merlin, I am so sorry, Miss. I am… my friend played a trick on me last night and locked me into this room and I… I was drunk. I didn’t realize…”

She couldn’t help but smile at his obvious discomfort as she realized that she had involuntarily participated in a typical Marauder’s prank.

“Goodness, calm down,” she said. “It’s not like you raped me or anything. You just accidentally slept in the same bed.”

She held out her hand.

“I’m Holly,” she said, using the name she had agreed on with Dumbledore. “Nice to meet you.”

Remus shook her hand, his fingers shaking. He looked younger than twenty, she decided. His body still looked boyish and his face, even though already scarred, only showed a very faint hint at a stubble. His clothing style hadn’t changed much over the years. Everything about him was grey and shapeless, the style of somebody who preferred to be overlooked.

“I’m Remus,” he said. 

After he’d calmed down enough to explain the situation to her, they concentrated on the task at hand. Hermione’s training at the Ministry and a couple of years of breaking the rules with the Golden Trio came in helpful. Sirius had not played light, but after about an hour, they had finally broken the last of his enchantments and walked down to the kitchen.

“... locked him into the second spare bedroom and…” Sirius voice could be heard.

“You did WHAT?” Kingsley sounded alarmed. 

“I locked Remus into the second spare bedroom…”

“You idiot!” the older man exclaimed. “That’s where I put our guest!”

He rushed out of the kitchen just to almost run into the escapees. He stared at Hermione, then at Remus, then took a deep breath.

“I apologise …” he began but Hermione only shook her head and walked past him into the kitchen, followed by Remus, who was blushing again.

“Good morning” she said to the dark haired wizard who was leaning against the counter and chewing on some dog biscuits which he downed with big gulps of black coffee from an oversized yellow mug. “You must be Sirius, the guy who locked Remus into the room I am currently staying in. I’m Holly. Is that coffee? Is there more where that came from?”

Sirius stared at her with bewilderment in his eyes. She realized he must be hungover from last night, but he still looked incredible. She had only known him after his imprisonment, after he had faced the dementors and the false accusation for Lily’s and James’s death. She had known he had been much different before that, but she had not expected him to have been quite so handsome. His black wavy hair hung down to his shoulders and framed a narrow, angular face with dark brows and grey eyes. He wore a pair of snug jeans and a black, fitted t-shirt  that didn’t leave much to the imagination.

He introduced himself, then provided her with coffee which Remus added some milk to after she requested it. 

“Man, you’re eating those things again?” the werewolf commented with a sniff at the dog biscuits. “You’re gross.”

Sirius waved a dog biscuit in front of his nose.

“Jealous, Moony?”   


Remus shook his head and got some cereal out of one of the cupboards before pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“I might not have earned my title as superior wizard to Sirius Black today, because I have to admit that Holly here helped me to get out of that room, but I think the only person in here who should be jealous is you. After all, I got to sleep in one bed with a beautiful girl.”

Sirius grit his teeth.

“That was unplanned for.”

Then, turning to Hermione he grinned.

“Sorry for having that lunatic locked up with you. Didn’t know you were staying here. Are you with the order?”

She nodded. They had decided on a rough backstory for her the other day. It wouldn’t hold against a scrutinising interrogation but the odd question could be easily answered.

“Yorkshire branch” she said. “Dumbledore asked me to come over and talk him through the going ons up North,”

 

~*~*~

 

It was strange, sitting in the kitchen with Sirius and Remus, knowing that they wouldn’t live for another twenty years. Hermione knew enough about the dangers of time travel to keep this information to herself, but it made her stomach turn. Both of them had been altered so much by the first war. Their younger selves seemed like different people, much happier people. Especially Remus, albeit shy and a little awkward, smiled much more often than she had ever seen Professor Lupin smile. And Sirius - he was all too aware of his good looks and his self-confidence was over the moon. He joked a lot, laughed a lot and was painfully unaware of the fate that awaited him. She wished she could save him from what lay ahead: from the accusations and his time at Azkaban, from the years that would be stolen from him.

Remus became more and more talkative when he found out that she knew about his condition (a fact that she had decided was unnecessary to hide as it would have been common knowledge in the old Order) and didn’t care that he grew some fur every full moon.  

As she listened to the boys telling a story about one of their classmates blowing up a unicorn in Care of Magical Creatures in 6th year (her official reason for not attending Hogwarts was that she had gone to school in France), Dumbledore appeared in the doorway. Another pang of sadness shot through Hermione’s heart. Another person whose death she knew about.

“Good morning everyone!” the headmaster said.

He helped himself to a cup and some coffee and took a seat next to Sirius, absentmindedly taking one of the dog biscuits and dunking it into the black brew.

“I have been doing some research into your Patronus issue, Remus”, he announced and chewed on the dog biscuit, his expression somewhat undecided whether it was tasty or not. 

“It seems more problematic than I first thought. There is no reason why the spell for making the Patronus speak shouldn’t work for you, and I am the one who invented it after all. There might be a hitch though, that makes it impossible for people with your condition to use it. I just don’t understand why. I mean, why is Sirius, who is more dog-like on a normal day than you will ever be wolf-like, able to make his Patronus speak and you aren’t? That’s just nonsensical. Do we have normal biscuits somewhere? I mean biscuits made for humans? I think these are quite unsatisfactory, I like them with more sugar in them.”

Hermione listened closely as the headmaster produced some scrolls of parchment and outlined a few ideas about how exactly the werewolf-virus impeded the spell he had come up with.

“So, long story short”, he finally said, holding up a piece of good old shortbread, “we should test whether it works when you drink wolfsbane and if that doesn’t do the job we can try to wiggle the magic into place with these amendments.”

He pointed to a particularly chaotic part of his mind map. Remus nodded, obviously having understood more of the workings behind the magic than Hermione did - she realized again how much she missed having him as her tutor. Sirius yawned, obviously not even bothering to follow the discussion.

“I’m much too hungover to understand any of this. You could be speaking troll and I’d probably get more sense out of it” he admitted. “I’m gonna go and work on the motorbike for a bit.”

 

~*~*~

 

Hermione spent the rest of the day with Remus, enjoying every minute with this younger, a little lighter-hearted version of her former mentor and friend. He showed her the book he was reading at the moment and then explained that the Order had only recently been able to move into Grimmauld Place as their headquarters. Sirius’ mother Walburga had died unexpectedly and he’d inherited the house.

“It’s dark and dank, and it’s full of pure blood magic to ward Muggles off and shit like that. And don’t ever lift that curtain in the hallway. Walburga had a portrait made and it’s almost as insufferable as she herself was. Sirius tried to hex it off the wall, but it’s stuck for good, so the best we could do was put the curtain up to blindfold it.”

He had started chopping vegetables for dinner and Hermione was helping him. She wasn’t a good cook, but she was good at following instructions.

“Sirius hates it here, spends every free minute in the shed outside working on his bike,” Remus went on. “I think he doesn’t have the best memories of this place. But it’s incredibly convenient for us to have it. Before, we met up at a different place every time and it was difficult to get everybody together. Grimmauld Place might be dusty and horrible, but it’s also as safe as can be. Can you put the pan onto the stove, please?”

They worked together as if they had done this a million times before. The kitchen was rather small, but somehow they managed to never be in each other’s way. It was a bit like a dance.

When the roast was finally in the oven, Remus grinned.

“Can you get Sirius? I will look for Dumbledore and Shacklebolt.”   
  


She nodded and went outside but found the garden shed empty except for a neat arrangement of tools on a small wooden work table and a black-gleaming motorcycle. She frowned and went back into the house, opening doors and shouting Sirius’s name until she heard his response from further upstairs. The ladder to the attic had been unfolded and the hatch gaped open. She climbed the ladder and stuck her head up through the opening.

“Sirius?”

He was rummaging around in a cardboard box. Metal parts were clanking and he swore profusely.

“Where the heck is the darned… Holly! Please be careful!”

She had pulled herself up through the hatch and her shoulder had brushed  against the door. It wobbled, then banged shut, raising a cloud of dust from the floor.

“Oh fab!” Sirius sighed throwing a dangerous looking wrench back into the box and covering his face in his hand. 

Hermione knelt down to pull the hatch back open, but it didn’t even budge an inch. It didn’t feel like it was jammed either, it felt as if somebody was holding it closed from the other side.

She frowned. There was magic in play in here.

“My lovely mother Walburga used to lock me and my brother up here when she got tired of us or didn’t approve of our actions,” Sirius said. “No chance opening that hatch from the inside. We tried every spell we knew, and between us, we had a vast repertoire.”

“Damn,” Hermione said, stopping her efforts. “Remus is down in the kitchen. Do you think he’ll hear us if we shout?”

Sirius shook his head.

“Walburga sound-proofed the room. She was very thorough. Having two boys wailing from the ceiling didn’t fit her idea of an undisturbed afternoon. You also need a special key to unlock it, once it’s shut and she gave that key to that good-for-nothing house-elf Kreacher. He doesn’t listen to Remus, actually spits him in the face every time their paths cross. Also doesn’t care for my orders, because he hasn’t caught up with the fact that I am officially his master now. The only person he seems to have a bit respect for is Dumbledore. So we’re stuck here for good until Albus returns.”

He was about to close the cardboard box, then exclaimed with delight, pulling a very ordinary looking screw out of the mess.

“Ha! That was what I was looking for!”

He turned to Hermione and grinned.

“So, as we’re stuck here and will be for a while…” he walked over to a corner of the attic and pulled a very moth-eaten mattress out into the dim light that came from the skylights. 

“Have a seat, Holly. You don’t get paid for standing around. Sorry I can’t offer you a chair or anything else that would be more sophisticated.”

While she took a seat, he’d accio-ed several candlesticks and lit the candles in them with a flick of his wand, making it less gloomy in the dusty storage room. 

“So what’s your game in the order?” he enquired from somewhere behind a row of shelves. “You said you’re from up North but you don’t sound like it at all.”

“I grew up in London,” she responded. “But I moved to Sheffield after I completed my education at Beauxbatons Academy in France. I’m mainly working on the development of new counter-spells.”

Sirius grunted affirmatively, then finally reappeared in her line of sight again, carrying a couple of old books.

“Favourite subject was Charms, I assume then?”

She shrugged.

“I liked Transfiguration more, to be honest, but I don’t have as much of a knack for it.”

He nodded, folded himself down onto the mattress next to her and pointed at one of the books.

“Guess this might be interesting for you. I don’t know how much you’ve been told by Remus and the others but my family doesn’t exactly have a reputation of being Muggle-friendly. I am the one member who ended up in Gryffindor, the one son who didn’t end up waving the Pure-Blood-Superiority banner in everyone’s face. I don’t really have a family anymore, I guess. I have the Order. James and Remus are like my brothers, much more so than my actual brother ever was. It’s… sometimes it’s difficult to be in this house again. It doesn’t hold many good memories for me.” 

He stopped, fell silent for a second and closed his eyes as if to push back some of these unwanted memories. Then he smiled at her again and held out the book to her. 

“This is from my mother’s collection. It’s a compilation of spells that range from nasty to terrifying. You might find it interesting how they are structured so you can work on countering them. As far as I know, there’s still not much in terms of defense you can do against the ones in chapter ten to fifteen.”   
  


~*~*~

 

She was amazing. Sirius couldn’t help but stare at her in awe. The only thing he managed to suppress was his jaw dropping and looking like an idiot. She came up with three new spells in less than an hour, thoroughly reading through the old instructions and disassembling the charms the way he’d disassemble a motorbike, then examining each part, working on a resolution for the detail until - in the end - she put them all together like a puzzle again. It was fascinating to watch and listen to her. Dumbledore had really found an asset in Yorkshire, that much was clear. He had not found her particularly beautiful when she had first come into the kitchen this morning. She was average-looking, her hair a little too curly, her face one of these combinations of eyes, mouth and nose that didn’t leave an impression. She was slender but nothing about her body was remarkable in any way. Sirius had therefore not really looked at her properly before. Her appearance was way too common to spark his interest.

But her mind was incredible, her reasoning sound and her wit was quick. She was an extraordinarily talented witch and somehow this changed the way he saw her.

When the stars appeared in the skylights above them and both of them had been yawning every couple of minutes, she curled up on the mattress like a cat. He pulled one of the moth eaten blankets over her and absent mindedly stroked her hair.

“Tell me a story,” she murmured. “One of your fairy tales.”

He lifted a brow.

“I’m Muggleborn,” she explained. “I grew up with entirely different stories from you. I once got a book from somebody that I enjoyed a lot. ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’.”

“Ah,” Sirius grinned. “Yeah, that is quite famous. But have you heard about the Sisters Stern? They collected about a hundred stories from all over Europe and wrote them down for the first time. They are rather dark, but I liked them as a child.”

She turned her head to meet his gaze.

“I’d love to hear one of these stories,” she said. 

And so he told her about “The Witch Who Lost Her Cat” and the story about “The Flying Forest”.

At some point in the night, Sirius fell asleep. When Dumbledore finally retrieved the key from Kreacher and opened the hatch to the attic, he found the young man sleeping on the mattress, books strewn around it and a whiff of cinnamon still lingering in the air.

 

~*~*~

 

She had woken up because something had tugged on her. The attic was dark, the candles had burnt down. By the light of the moon through the skylight, she saw Sirius resting next to her, his chest rising and falling regularly, black strands of hair falling into his handsome face. She had reached out to touch his cheek, feeling sad, because she knew so well what awaited him. On a whim, she leaned towards him to brush her lips against his forehead…

… and lost her balance, falling head-first onto the wooden floor, making a ruckus. She blinked, realising she was still in the same place but that the place had changed massively. The mattress was gone as were the candlesticks and - most importantly - Sirius Black! She rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. The next moment she heard footsteps on the ladder and the hatch was thrown open. A freckled face framed by a bunch of red hair peered up at her, looking confused.

“What the… Hermione? What in Merlin’s name are you doing up here?” Ginny Weasley enquired. 

Hermione shook her head, slowly coming to terms with the fact that the time-turner effect must have finally worn off. 

“Good to see you, Ginny,” she said calmly. 

“You look a mess,” the other woman stated and gave her friend the once-over. “Let’s have some tea and you can explain what happened.”

Hermione sighed, following her downstairs. Well, what had happened? She had met Sirius and Remus again and somehow her heart felt heavy now, heavier than it had felt when they’d lost the wizards the first time round. She realized she was grieving their deaths and she gulped, trying to stop her eyes from welling up.

There was a picture on the mantelpiece in the living room, taken one Christmas Day right here at Grimmauld Place. A much older Sirius and Remus were smiling at her from the frame and she blinked the tears back, as her lips automatically returned the smile. 

“Farewell,” she whispered quietly.


End file.
